Fire, Ice, and Bio-Intelligence: Amanda’s Iceland Trip
My trip to Iceland came about in a very serendipitous way. It was a seminar I had reached out about months prior after studying with Liz Koch over the summer. Her work really spoke to me and I wanted an opportunity to learn more from her. Unfortunately, the course was full. Three weeks before the trip, I received an email on a Friday afternoon that someone had dropped out and they needed a female replacement. Ahhhh… talk about a tough decision. I knew that I needed to go but it’s not like me to make such a big financial decision that quickly and also to be away from my family for a whole week was a total stretch. After agonizing over it all weekend I decided to JUST DO IT!! I guess Nike was onto something.
Touching down in Icelandic heaven. First of all, for anyone that hasn’t been to Iceland I highly suggest putting it on the list. My first impression was how friendly, warm and open the people are. The landscape was so strange…not only did I feel like I was in another country but possibly even on another planet. How cool!?! I was way too tired to wait for the buses to run so I opted for a cab. My cab driver was great. He was an Icelandic Native and had never lived anywhere else. He told me all about the country. Even that their favorite sports are soccer and handball. It was a short ride to my destination, the Silica Hotel!
This place, the Silica was the perfect spot to participate in something like this. It was a very small resort with fantastic healthy food and our own private lagoon filled with healing minerals and naturally forming silica. The water on most days was around 103 degrees. It was a truly nourishing environment.
Which brings me to the good stuff: the change of paradigm. What I took away most from this adventure is that we, myself included have lost a lot of the connection to ourselves. We have completely disconnected with our body awareness and forgotten about our true bio-intelligence that exists in all of us. This is most easily taped by innovative movement. Our spine or midline is where the most effective movement takes place. This is not a column but should be fluid in movement and very mobile. The best way to create fluidity is by hydrating the spine through movement. If there is anything I’ve learned in my 13 years practicing bodywork is that bodywork only goes so far. There NEEDS to be a movement component.
So biological intelligence is big. It does amazing things. Because we haven’t thought of the body as intelligent and constantly learning, we don’t even know what many of those capabilities are. That’s the power of a system built on chance, a system created through billions of years of failures and triumphs.
But here’s the real take home: knowing that your body is intelligent can make you more intelligent. Because what you do is what you become. Every moment of life is a teaching moment. Every moment potentially gives you chances to make your body more capable, more intelligent, smarter. Everything you do teaches your body something new.
If you want to get smart, you need education. In school we train and teach our brains. Now we need to train and teach our bodies. Biological intelligence makes you resilient, more capable, more able to produce and create, more well-equipped to avoid and fight off disease. We need to teach our bodies to teach themselves.
Stay tuned for more in this category, we have some incredible stuff coming your way. Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions on this topic or want to learn more please feel free to reach out.
Growth. Strength. Peace.
Amanda
